Transparency and Accountability for the Federal Reserve! - by Ron Paul

Last
week, the 112th Congress was sworn in. I am pleased that I will be
chairing the Monetary Policy Subcommittee of the Financial Services
Committee which has oversight of the Federal Reserve. Obviously, this
position will facilitate my efforts to ensure the Fed provides the
American people with more information about what they have been doing
with and to our money.

Not surprisingly, since my chairmanship
was announced, apologists for the Fed have been recycling the old
canard about how increased transparency threatens the Fed's so-called
political independence. By 'independence' they are referring to the
Fed's ability to greatly impact the economy with virtually no
meaningful oversight. We only recently learned that the bankers at the
Fed were able to use the latest financial crisis to bail out Wall
Street cronies and foreign central banks with billions of dollars that
were created and wasted instead of appropriated and voted on by
representatives of the people. The Fed and its supporters in the
Congress vehemently fought even this small bit of transparency and
without this one-time provision in the Financial Reform Act forcing
disclosure we would still not have this information.

Indeed, we
are in the dark on so much of what the Fed has done. This is extremely
dangerous for our country, yet this power and secrecy is defended as
some kind of public good, which is patently ridiculous. Our government
is based on a system of checks and balances. With no check on the Fed,
it is no surprise it has thrown the economy wildly off-balance. The
solution is not to reinflate the bubbles the Fed created or to continue
to devalue the currency or to throw billions at failing banks and
corporations. The solution is to return sanity and freedom to monetary
policy. Forcing the entire country to use a medium of exchange that is
subject to the whims of elite bankers and their cronies on Wall Street
is not sanity. Hoping that an unchecked all-powerful behemoth banking
cartel will solve any economic problem is not sanity.

The
problems the Fed was originally created to solve now look miniscule
compared to the problems it has created. If political independence
erodes the purchasing power of the currency
by 98%, destabilizes the
economy with radical booms and busts, all while increasing unemployment
and tipping us ever closer to hyperinflation, perhaps it is time to try
a little transparency and accountability instead. Better still, we
should try goving the people true economic freedom.

Make no
mistake, the Fed is not truly independent of political pressure. Its
chair is appointed by the president and it is a creature of Congress.
Congress has a duty, albeit a neglected one, to exercise oversight of
the Fed. However, even if it was politicially independent, it is not
independent of the influence of Wall Street. One only has to look at
the revolving door between the Fed and the big banks to know that.
Disclosure of TARP funds confirm this. It is nothing short of cruel and
criminal for Congress to stand idly by while the life savings of
Americans are inflated away to nothing. It is high time Congress
insists on getting complete information on what the Fed has been doing
and for whom.

My hope is that exposing the truth will
demonstrate the insanity of the status quo and more people will call
for sensible changes, such as legalizing competing currencies.